For our final installment, JJ put together a bunch of components for a mini-ITX Haswell build and took us through his build process. The motherboard itself is a Z87-I Deluxe, an upcoming mini-ITX Z87 board from ASUS. Also in the video you'll see JJ install ASUS' mini-ITX optimized GeForce GTX 670 DC Mini card. Finally, the chassis is pretty cool - it's the Lian Li PC-Q30.

Although the K-series Haswells officially have a TDP of 84W, in practice they run much, *much* hotter than is expected for that rating. On a 4770K, a stock heatsink bumps up against the thermal limits and may overheat (>100 degrees) if case ventilation isn't perfect. In practice, Haswell puts off more heat than a 130W SB-E.Reply

Actually it puts out exactly the right amount of heat you'd expect for an 84w TDP, however the chip gets a lot hotter, mostly due to the poor thermal transfer between the cpu and the lid on the chip. Reply

You are confusing temperature and heat production. Haswell is similar to Ivy Bridge in terms of power consumption under load. It certainly does not output more heat than SNB-E, and likely is lower than mainstream SNB, even with the inclusion of the FIVR. It also does not run noticeably hotter, except

TDP is Thermal Design Power -- an 84W TDP would suggest that you need a cooler capable of cooling an 84W processor. It has nothing to do with temperature, and is correlated with power consumption.

Your assertion that Haswell has thermal issues is completely false. Haswell's temps and power consumption are fine.Reply

From what I can see, you need better cooling to hit similar clocks to ivybridge and haswell seems to hit the 100c thermal limit at lower clocks. I think that was the point of JDG1880's post. If you hope to get the same clocks out of a 4770K as a 3770K or 3930k you may need improved cooling over what you had with Ivybridge/sandybridge. On the plus side, Haswell has more performance than Ivybridge so you dont need to go as high an overclock to get similar performance.Reply

I'm surprised they're doing air cooling. Basic liquid cooling (like a $50 kit) does better than any cooler in a ITX case because there isn't enough airflow for a traditional cooler to work. It's just too cramped.

Consider the Silverstone FT03-Mini (ITX) which like many ITX cases doesn't focus a lot of air around the center of the motherboard let alone has a 3" height restriction where most tower coolers wont work. However, put a 120mm radiator at the bottom with a basic water block...problem solved. Same price as a good tower cooler without having to worry about airflow.Reply

I couldn't agree more. The whole system (Corsair H80 in my case) is smaller than those megasinks. The amount of space it takes near the cpu is smaller than the stock heatsink. The radiator and push pull fans take up less room than a megasink. I have it set up to draw cool air from outside the case. I get excellent temps on IB. My case stays cool. My machine is cool and quiet while being O/C'd to 4.8GHz. Just amazing. I thank the salesperson at Microcenter who convinced me to get it. Reply